Popular Guides

Hunter Pet Tanking

Purpose of this Guide:

This guide should help you set up a your beast mastery spec for pet tanking.

Picking a Pet

The first thing you will need to do is get your pet situated. Generally, when questing and doing old content your pet won't make a huge difference, but, some pets will definitely make life easier. In newer content, it usually is more helpful to have a decent pet.

Shale Spider: Stats, Crit, and Solid Shell. Useful for if you need a short burst of damage reduction for a boss fight.

Quilen: Crit,Eternal Guardian, andStone Armor. If you're running with a person who dies frequently, this pet is very useful. Also, it has a passive emergency cooldown.

Spirit Beast: Mastery, Spirit Walk, and Spirit Mend. Spirit walk is fairly useless aside from an initial burst. The heal can be useful in some situations where you/a friend takes damage and even when those situations don't occur, it can be cast on the pet. Spirit mend is fairly weak though.

Fox: Not very useful, but it has Agile Reflexes which makes it somewhat viable if you really want a fox.

Talents and Glyphs

Here is a link to the build I use if you don't wish to read further in this section.Level 15: Posthasteis useful for fights with where you need an extra movement impair break. Narrow Escapeis good for kite fights where you can root extra enemies to keep them off your pet briefly. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimaera is useful in most other situations for more frequent use of Deterrence. Level 30: Binding Shot is a good option for kiting and multiple targets, as well as when paired with a knockback. Intimidation is best for single targets that can be stunned. Wyvern Sting is useful if you need extra CC.Level 45:Exhilaration is useful for those who need a big burst of emergency healing. Spirit Bond is a good choice if you prefer a passive heal. Iron Hawk is useful if you take a lot of damage, but isn't very helpful to your pet.Level 60: This section is based on personal preference. Level 75: Blink Strikes is useful in most situations because your pet can teleport between targets, thus allowing it to gain aggro faster. You may wish to choose the other two for damage reasons.Level 90: Glaive Toss is useful for kiting adds and does higher single target damage. Powershotis useful when paired with Binding Shot for a stun allowing your pet to have breathing room. Barrage provides useful AoE, but may not be optimal for pet tanking as it can cause overpulling.If you want to pull as many enemies as possible, pairing Barrage with Misdirection can be useful in some situations. Level 100: Focusing Shot is only useful if you have trouble keeping your focus up. Exotic Munitions is useful if you need to use Frozen Ammo for kiting. Adaptation provides extra damage and useful utility(see section below). The following glyphs are glyphs I find to be useful to pet tanking. You may wish to use other glyphs if these are not useful in your situation.

If you're using this talent, make note that you can choose between any spec for your pet to tank with now as all specs have most of the important tenacity abilities.Additionally, all specs have Roar of Sacrifice which can have autocast shut off for an emergency damage break on you or a friend. Use the following to help pick your pet's spec:

*You can also use the following macro to cause misdirection to be cast on your focus (if you have one you can cast it on) or your pet. In this cast set your tank as your focus when applicable:

#showtooltip Misdirection/cast Misdirection

*Condensed macro from comment by asakawa Thanks!You may also be able to add abilities to the end of the misdirection macro to ensure misdirection is up while casting them. Misdirection has no cooldown (Glyph) , global cooldown or cost so to use it automatically with Arcane Shot for example, use the following macro:

Every few moments cast Mend Pet on your pet when it is below 90%. (The Glyph of Mending will allow more healing to be done so you won't need to spam it as often) Use Last Stand if your pet drops to about 15% and keep usingMend Pet until your pet is about 90% or more healed.( Keep in mind if you have Glyph of Mend Pet you will be able to remove most harmful effects through healing.) (Exhilaration should be used in alternation withMend Pet or when your health is getting low too, if you have it.)

Comment by CryCrimson

Comment by atreestump

What the hell is the point of a talent calculator... Just seems like I can put stuff in there I already know... It just seems unnecessary

Comment by jsmohrfeld

Very useful for a new hunter who has been struggling with pet tanking. Thank you!

Comment by Shona123

BEST GUIDE EVAR!11!1!one

adfhaskgfhfkjhfkgajhfjsfhdfgjfhgfhdf GAR DA BEST HUNTARD!

multishot/10

i voted for GARACK OGAMA *wears button and sticker*

Comment by kharon

While I don't object to any of the choices you provided for tanking pets, I've personally had a great time with my Gorilla, thanks to the buff from Blessing of Kongs. Especially with a Tenacity build for tanking, and Thunderstomp from it, my Gorilla is a hearty tank who has served me well since my tour of duty in Northrend (prior to Northrend, I focused on DPS pets like cats). Gorillas are in the Tenacity family of pets, too, so even without having the coolest abilities, they are solid tanks, especially if you build yourself right.